1. Field of the Invention
An object of the invention is a method for the optimization of network traffic, and associated implementation devices. The field of the invention is that of telecommunications networks, and of the services accessible through these networks. More particularly, the field of the invention is that of access to services, through networks, by using mobile clients. A mobile client is a smart apparatus capable of implementing a communications program to access one or more telecommunications networks and thus get connected to a server corresponding to a service to which the user of the mobile client subscribes.
It is an aim of the invention to reduce the stream of information received and sent out by the mobile client to access different services to which the user subscribes.
It is another aim of the invention to reduce the RF activity of a mobile client.
Yet another aim of the invention is to reduce the power consumption of a mobile client.
2. Brief Description of the Prior Art
In the prior art, there are various known methods of trying to resolve these problems. A first method is called the “optimization of routing protocols”. A routing protocol, or protocol in general, defines formats for information exchanges between two apparatuses communicating through a network. A protocol defines, in particular, the information to be transmitted through frames or messages. In the prior art, optimizing a protocol means reducing the size of the frames sent. This is actually a rationalizing of the information transmitted. It is then ensured that there is no longer any transmission of information that is redundant or unnecessary the context in which the message or frame is sent.
Another solution implemented is the use of a cache memory. A cache memory is a memory that preserves the trace of the most recent operations performed by the user of the apparatus in which this cache memory is installed. Thus, if the user makes the same request twice, it is no longer necessary to look for the answer to this request on the network, since this answer is already in the cache memory. Such an approach is inappropriate because the response to a request may depend on the instant at which the question is asked. To the extent that the cache memories are not updated so as to limit the net stream, the responses given to identical requests will not always be relevant. This is especially true in electronic messaging applications for example. Indeed a client, or client application, regularly makes interrogations to find out if new messages have arrived. The request is therefore always identical but the answer is not necessarily always the same. This answer therefore cannot be recorded in a cache memory. These periodic interrogations are also called polling.
In a third solution, the stream is reduced by compressing the transmitted data. However, this technique has the effect of maintaining major RF activity as well as network occupancy. Furthermore, it gives rise to additional calculations because the data sent have to be compressed and decompressed. This approach gives a small gain in network compactness but, in this case, there is a loss of autonomy for a mobile client because the compression and decompression operations require a great deal of cycle time for the microprocessor and they therefore consume power.
Thus, none of the three existing solutions in the prior art significantly reduces the network activity of a client, especially that of a mobile client, none of them resolves the problem related to the regular interrogation of a server and, therefore, none of them resolves the problems of power consumption.
The persisting problem therefore, in many network protocols, is that the client periodically sends requests to the server in order to be informed of a modification of the context on the server. This periodic stream of requests is costly in terms of bandwidth and it is an essential goal of the invention to reduce this net stream.